


Tomorrow We'll See

by RileyC



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angst, Community: hc_bingo, M/M, Reichenbach Falls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-06
Updated: 2010-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-10 23:30:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holmes, Watson, on their way to Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tomorrow We'll See

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the h/c_bingo challenge. The prompt was: Sore muscles.

It’s a relief to reach their room at the Englischer Hof, and John Watson eases himself down onto a chair, carefully stretching out his aching leg and rubbing the protesting muscle.

The pain’s a dull ache, manageable enough with some rest and warmth. Fortune’s been with him, he knows, that there’s been no worse eruption of pain on this leisurely ramble across Europe. He’s grateful for their sojourn here in Meiringen, though, and hopeful of their stopover being for more than one night.

The door opens and Holmes appears, a boy following with their luggage. Holmes spares him one glance, but Watson is in no doubt of those sharp grey eyes expertly assessing the situation in that brief moment. He wonders if Holmes has noticed him leaning more heavily on his stick all along, and proposed their stopping here accordingly. Perhaps thoughts of Moriarty have not preoccupied Holmes quite so thoroughly after all.

With the boy dismissed, Holmes shuts the door after him and rests back against it, regarding Watson. “Are you in much pain?”

“It’s a trifle, Holmes,” Watson says, quite truthfully. “It will pass.”

“Still, you might have said something.”

Watson looks at him standing over there. Never a substantial figure, the tall, lean form appears even more finely honed, a haggard quality to him that Watson’s seen before when a frustrating case had been consuming all Holmes’s energies. Always tightly-strung, Holmes’s nerves have been exceptionally on edge these last days, especially since word had come of Moriarty’s escape. Seeing to it Holmes didn’t collapse under the strain had taken precedence over Watson’s own small complaints.

As his friend has no doubt discerned that already, Watson tells the simple truth. “I didn’t want to burden you with that on top of everything else.”

“My dear fellow,” Holmes pushes off from the door now and comes toward him, “you are hardly a burden. You should have said,” he added, catching Watson’s eyes, a glint of self-censure in his own. “You should have refused to come on this mad flight.”

Curious, Watson thinks, that Holmes chooses that word. “Are we fleeing, Holmes?” he asks quietly as his friend kneels before him.

“I may be,” Holmes murmurs, enigma personified for an instant. Then, smiling slightly, he asks, “If you will allow me?”

He shouldn’t allow it. They made their choices, and if both have grown to rue them, it is surely impossible now to recapture all was that lost. Folly to try – worse folly to want to. Certain of that, still Watson nods in acquiescence and sinks back in the chair as Holmes reaches for him, strong hands expertly massaging tired, strained thigh and calf muscles.

It’s been ages (_three years, five months, eleven days, an odd assortment of hours and minutes_) since Holmes has done this for him at the end of a long and strenuous case: those long, acid-stained fingers steadily working the aches away until Watson heaves a deep sigh of pleasure, slouching even deeper in the chair. _Bliss_, he thinks for a moment – muscles tightening again in the next instant as Holmes goes too far, resting his head against Watson’s thigh and exhaling a deep breath of contentment.

“Holmes…”

“I know, Doctor.” The soft words are resigned and weary, and still Holmes doesn’t move, not even when Watson reaches to touch him, fingers stroking the dark hair, tousling it.

Turning his head, long fingers stroking along Watson’s thigh, Holmes asks, “If I asked, would you abandon all and fly with me to the ends of the earth?”

That the words are couched in an academic tone detracts nothing of their power, and Watson pulls in a sharp breath, knowing his own answer all too well. “Don’t, Holmes.”

“No, I won’t.”

Odd how Watson feels something very like disappointment in that moment.

Still he doesn’t push Holmes away, doesn’t stop stroking his fingers through Holmes’s hair. And he doesn’t turn Holmes away when his friend presses a soft kiss to his mouth.

Later, sharing the big bed under the eaves, neither needing to say a word because their bodies knew the old dance by heart. Watson doesn’t think about tomorrow. Tomorrow would keep; tomorrow … they’d see.

 


End file.
